The Brief

Two questions that can keep me up at night: What to wear? And what to eat?

The day I headed to the new H Mart on Beach Boulevard — the chain’s largest store stateside — in Westminster, I only got one of those questions right. (Read about my clothing mishap below).

H Mart is a Korean grocery chain, but it's so much more. K-beauty, individual barbeque grills and hotpots, kawaii stationery, and rows and rows dedicated to Korean snacks, noodles, and sauces.

A small snapshot of H Mart snacks

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The banchan (side dishes) section is my favorite. People who call Disneyland the happiest place on earth clearly haven’t been to that section. I’m a serial snacker, and every time I'm at H Mart, I have to pick up some oi muchim (spicy cucumber salad), radish kimchi that my 6-year-old loves, stir-fried hot anchovies, seasoned eggs in soy sauce, an assortment of pickled vegetables, and of course, the fish cakes.

The banchan aisle at H Mart in Westminster

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And the fresh food sections. Plump, eggplant-colored mangosteens, red prickly rambutans, reddish-pink bumpy lychees, and hot-pink dragon fruits — a tropical fruit paradise. Squid, crab, king crab, lobster, shrimp, clams, fish in every hue and size. The best part, they cut and clean fish just how you would like it.

The seafood fest at H Mart

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Food lovers' paradise

But there’s not just food to buy. There’s also food to eat. The food court has something for everyone’s palette and craving.

I was on a mission to try as many foods as I could and ended up walking around the court not once, not twice, but three times.

I finally made my choices (ignoring the pepper crispy wings at Goodbne chicken that kept calling my name — that would have filled me up completely), sat down and got ready to dig in.

Here's my feast:

Mandu (from Chang Hwa Dang): Thinly sliced carrots and mushrooms inside the mandu, or dumplings, had a bite, the vegetables slightly crispy against the soft dumpling skin. While meats and vegetables are placed raw in traditional Chinese dumplings, in Korea, they're cooked before being wrapped in thin mandu wrappers. Interestingly, the mandu didn’t come with a dipping sauce but tiny slivers of danmuji, or yellow pickled radish. I bit off a tiny corner of the mandu, stuffed a danmuji in the mandu and gave it a try: The pickle enveloped the veggies for a sweet, slightly tangy flavor.

Mandu dumplings filled with carrot and mushrooms

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Kimbap (from Jaws Topokki): If food is an art form, kimbap — sort of like sushi — is the perfect canvas. It can be highly subjective, with everyone’s filling preference different. Momofuku recommends kimbap parties (should we do this at the LAist office?) so you can try people’s filling preferences. Also, if you ever host one, please invite me: I am a great guest, rarely showing up empty-handed.

My tuna kimbap was a pretty sight: Dark nori tightly enclosed the slightly pink, creamy tuna, orange carrots and translucent cucumber with a smattering of sesame seeds on top. It was the perfect summer meal — filling but light and wouldn’t have you reaching for that third cup of coffee to get you through the workday.

Tteokbokki (from Jaws Topokki): Tteokbokki, rice cakes simmered in a slightly spicy stew, is my standard go-to at Korean food courts: It’s spicy, has texture, and is always tasty. And I have a slight obsession with eomuk, or Korean fish cakes. I typically buy a tub and have it as a snack while working.

Tteokbokki almost always comes with eomuk, so imagine my disappointment as I searched through the spicy stew with my chopsticks and kept coming up short. There was no eomuk in mine despite being advertised as such. But the pleasant surprise was a soft quail egg bursting in my mouth against the kimchi-rich sauce.

The star of the show: the dolpan ojingeo.

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Dolpan ojingeo (from Yoo’s Place): Now, for the star of the show: the stone plate squid (quite literally on a grey hot stone plate). It was sizzling and steaming as I tried the other foods, as if forcing me to notice it. I finally succumbed.

Remember when I said I didn’t make the right fashion choices that day? This is why. The stone plate squid was spicy, hot and literally opened up every pore in my body. I began sweating profusely. That wouldn't have been great anytime, but I had decided to wear a silk shirt that day, and the back of the shirt became plastered to my back. Not a good look.

But it didn’t stop me. I kept reaching for more of the crispy, thin shards of squid, perfectly complemented by the caramelized slivers of onion, crunchy bean sprouts, and bitter perilla leaves.

It's a good thing I tried this last because I didn’t want to eat anything else after that. This dish had me in a trance.

Deep-fried mozzarella corn dog (from Myungrang): I finally broke away, packed up the leftovers, and took more laps around the food court trying to decide on what to try for dessert.

I went for a deep-fried mozzarella corn dog from Myungrang, a Korean chain with a huge fan following. I opted for a Fruity Pebbles topping — my first time trying the cereal. Maybe deep fried wasn’t the way to go for a novice. It was too sweet, too rich, too cheesy, too greasy — just too much.

I did see those viral TikTok ice creams — if you know, you know — and wished I'd brought a cooler bag with me. The peach- and mango-shaped ice creams are so popular, most stores normally run out them. But this H Mart was well stocked.

Ha. I will be prepared next time.

And there will be a next time.

Los Angeles’ regional homelessness agency is working to find ways to keep thousands of people in their homes, while complying with new federal funding restrictions on permanent housing.

The governing board for the L.A. Homeless Services Authority voted Monday to start the process of reallocating about $130 million in federal funding currently being spent on permanent housing to other projects meant to serve unhoused Angelenos.

Because of new funding restrictions from the U.S. Office of Housing and Urban Development, known as HUD, about 5,000 households in the county will lose their rental subsidies, according to several LAHSA officials who spoke at a commission meeting Monday.

Those changes, along with state and county funding shortfalls for homeless services, threaten to drastically worsen the region’s homelessness crisis, they said.

"The fact of the matter is there’s going to be a tremendous and terrible impact on people, on agencies, on landlords,” said Nathaniel VerGow, LAHSA’s chief program officer.

Officials said they’re scrambling to maximize federal funding under the new guidelines while also advocating against the new HUD policy.

“It is a cliff and it feels catastrophic, but I think it forces us as a region to figure out how to save ourselves,” LAHSA Commission Chair Amber Sheikh said.

The funding challenge

Most federal homelessness dollars flow into the L.A. region through the Continuum of Care program, managed by HUD.

The Los Angeles region is eligible for more than $260 million in federal funding under that program in the coming fiscal year, including $217 million for existing projects.

But no more than 30% of those funds can go toward permanent housing projects, according to a “notice of funding opportunity” HUD issued last month.

That’s a challenge for L.A. County, because 90% of regional HUD funds currently cover people’s rent, according to LASHA officials.

Instead, L.A. and other cities and counties must spend the bulk of their federal funds on other interventions, including transitional housing and street outreach.

HUD officials have said the policy is meant to encourage self-sufficiency.

At Monday’s meeting, Commissioner Justin Szlasa urged his colleagues to consider larger funding trends.

“ There's actually a 23% increase in available funding from HUD, the federal government,” he said. “It just doesn't work with the way that we normally have done things here.”

“We need to find, in this crisis, a way to be constructive about this,” Szlasa added.

HUD policy changes

HUD released its new notice of funding opportunity last month and rescinded a previous two-year funding agreement.

Opponents have concerns with the federal housing department’s move away from “housing first” approaches. They also said HUD rolled out the changes without providing enough time to prepare service providers and clients for disruptions.

Last week, 21 states, including California, sued HUD, claiming the new federal policies “essentially guarantee that tens of thousands of formerly homeless individuals and families will be evicted back into homelessness.”

This week, a group of cities and homelessness organizations also sued over the changes. Plaintiffs include the city and county of San Francisco. The Continuum of Care for San Francisco was awarded $56 million in federal funding for Fiscal Year 2024.

Approximately 91% of that funding supports permanent housing projects, according to the complaint.

What’s next?

The LAHSA Commission voted Monday to approve its request for applications for existing and new projects.

Providers must submit applications to LAHSA over the next two weeks, and LAHSA has until Jan. 14 to craft and submit a new application to HUD.

The agency is now talking with 130 contractors about the transition.

LAHSA is also working with some permanent supportive housing providers to convert their programs to transitional housing instead, officials said.

People who were in permanent housing projects aren’t eligible for transitional housing under HUD’s guidelines because they're not considered unhoused, VerGow said.

The commission also reviewed a policy for ranking project applications and prioritizing them for federal funding. Officials said that policy has to be approved at a LAHSA Commission subcommittee on Dec. 10.

Funds are expected to be awarded in May 2026.

LOS ANGELES — As the season of Advent begins, many Christians turn toward quiet reflection and preparation for Christmas. But in several Southern California congregations with large immigrant communities, that sacred anticipation is shadowed by a looming sense of fear.

For worshippers like Mike, an Iranian asylum-seeker who attends a West Los Angeles church, the weeks leading up to Christmas feel less like a spiritual refuge and more like a time of apprehension. He asked that only the anglicized version of his Farsi name be used because he fears speaking publicly could affect his immigration case. He fled Iran after converting to Christianity.

"I kept this secret, my faith as a secret, for like 12 years," he said.

Mike arrived in Los Angeles 18 months ago and says he has tried to build a life rooted in community and respect for his new home. But a series of immigration enforcement actions in the region — including the June arrests of two men outside a nearby church with a large Iranian membership — has shaken him.

"Even church is not safe because it's a public place," he said. "They can get there and catch you."

The Department of Homeland Security says enforcement actions at churches require secondary approval and are expected to be rare. Still, the concern is real inside Mike's congregation, where church leaders asked that the name of the church not be published.

A significant number of Iranian parishioners worship there, and the pastor often invites them to pray in Farsi during services. Lately, fewer take her up on the offer.

"It's part of the heartbreak of these days," the pastor said. "They feel like they have to be apprehensive about it — not even wanting to speak in their own language here."

She said the fear is especially painful during Advent, a season she describes as a time to prepare to "give thanks for this God we have who wants to be with us."

Room at the inn, despite fears

East of Los Angeles, at Baldwin Park United Methodist Church, Pastor Toña Rios unzips a red tent pitched in the middle of the sanctuary. For years, the church took in newly arrived immigrants, providing a place to sleep while they looked for work and housing.

The tent remains as a reminder of that welcome — and of the fears many congregants now carry. Rios estimates that about 80% of her church members are immigrants and says many don't have legal status.

"A lot of them say, 'Don't open the door. Just close the door,'" she said.

Rios urges a different posture, especially during Advent. She uses the tent to help her congregation imagine being the ones who offer shelter, not shut others out.

"It is very hard," she said. "But Jesus is going to be born in our heart. That's why we need to be prepared."

For longtime church member Royi Lopez, the sense of vulnerability goes beyond immigration status. Lopez is a U.S. citizen but says she often feels targeted because she is Latina. Many of her relatives are undocumented, and she worries constantly about them.

"What if on my way to church, they catch us?" she said. "On a daily basis, we're scared of going to the school, to work, to church, to even the grocery store."

Lopez says that during Advent, these fears remind her of the Christmas story itself — of Mary and Joseph searching for somewhere to stay, turned away again and again until somebody finally took them in.

"Even though so many doors were closed, somebody opened a door," she said.

That theme of welcome runs through the hymn chosen for every Sunday of Advent at Baldwin Park United Methodist Church, "All Earth is Hopeful." Its lyrics speak of a world longing for liberation, where people labor to "see how God's truth and justice set everybody free."
Copyright 2025 NPR

The Supreme Court today is hearing a billion-dollar case about whether internet providers can be liable for their users' committing copyright violations using their services.

The legal battle pits the music entertainment industry against Cox Communications, which provides internet to over 6 million residences and business.

A coalition of music labels, which represent artists such as Sabrina Carpenter, Givēon and Doechii, sued Cox alleging that company should be responsible for the copyright violations of internet users that Cox had been warned were serial copyright abusers.

The coalition argues Cox was sent numerous notices of specific IP addresses repeatedly violating music copyrights and that Cox's failure to terminate those IP addresses from internet access means that Cox should face the music.

In its briefs, the coalition argued many of Cox's anti-infringement measurements seem superficial and the company willingly overlooked violations.

The coalition points out that Cox had a 13-strike policy for potentially terminating infringing customers, under which Cox acted against a customer based on how many complaints it received about a particular user. The Cox manager who oversaw the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the law at issue in this case, told his team to "F the dmca!!!"

"Cox made a deliberate and egregious decision to elevate its own profits over compliance with the law," the coalition asserts.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and a jury agreed with the coalition, with the jury awarding the coalition more than a billion dollars in damages.

Cox argues it should not be liable for its customers' actions as it never encouraged the copyright infringements, its terms of service prohibit illegal activities, and it does not make additional money when customers use its internet to infringe on copyrights.

In its briefs, Cox specified that less than 1% of its users infringe on music copyrights and that its internal compliance measures "got 95% of that less than 1% to stop." It asserts that if the Supreme Court does not side with them, then "that means terminating entire households, coffee shops, hospitals, universities and even regional internet service providers (ISPs) — the internet lifeline for tens of thousands of homes and businesses — merely because some unidentified person was previously alleged to have used the connection to infringe."

A decision in the case is expected this summer.

Copyright 2025 NPR